A Florida high school saw students walk out of class this week to protest their school board’s decision to punish staff who allowed a transgender girl to play volleyball.
On Tuesday, hundreds of students walked out of Monarch High School in Broward County, FL, taking to the school’s athletic field to protest the reassignment of principal James Cecil, assistant principal Kenneth May, and multiple other staffers. According to video footage from NBC, the assembled students led each other in chants of “trans lives matter” and “bring back Cecil.” Some painted trans pride flags on their faces, and carried signs with slogans like “Let Her Serve” and “Trans Rights are Human Rights.”
Students swiftly organized the walkout after it was announced Monday that four staff members — Cecil, May, athletic director Dione Hester, and information management technician Jessica Norton — had been reassigned to “non-school” sites. A temporary coach was also put on leave. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Broward Schools Superintendent Peter Licata said he had “received a call from a constituent [...] that there could be some factors that were not appropriate for girls’ volleyball.” According to NBC, Licata added that he would add “an extra level of investigation” of athletic eligibility going forward, but did not state any specific policy changes.
On Tuesday, Alexandra Almeida, a senior at Monarch High, called the officials’ actions “ridiculous” in an interview with the Miami Herald. Almeida said she joined the walkout to support her friends and “bring more awareness to the situation so that people see what’s happening in our Florida schools.”
Broward Principals and Assistants Association executive director Lisa Maxwell also spoke out in support of Cecil in a statement this week, saying the BPPA is “confident that at the end of this investigation, principal James Cecil will be fully exonerated and will return to Monarch High.”
Allowing a trans girl to play on a sports team designated for girls violates a 2021 Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which categorizes trans girls as “male” and states such teams “may not be open to students of the male sex.” (Research indicates transfeminine people on hormone therapy do not have a significant athletic advantage over cisgender women.) According to CBS Miami, the trans student and her family, who declined to comment this week, previously filed a lawsuit challenging the law, but a federal judge rejected their case in early November.
“Under Governor DeSantis, boys will never be allowed to play girls’ sports. It’s that simple,” said Department of Education communications director Cailey Myers in a statement to news agencies this week. Myers added that upon learning a trans girl was allegedly playing volleyball at Monarch, which she called “completely unacceptable,” the DoE “instructed the district to take immediate action since this is a direct violation of Florida law.”
The Monarch protest is the latest in a series of student-led walkouts across Florida, where high schoolers and college students have rallied against DeSantis’ policies on education and LGBTQ+ rights. In February, students executed a statewide walkout protesting administrators who handed over trans students’ information to the governor’s office. The next month, four students at the University of South Florida were arrested while protesting DeSantis-backed policies against racial justice and diversity programs.
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